that helps our economy. home building and strong corporate profits, that also helped our economy. but here's the thing. when you dig deeper in the report, past that headline number of 2.7%, you know, it's not all it's cracked up to be. businesses built up bigger inventories of their products last quarter. that helps the economy now, but the thing is, it means next quarter these businesses may not buy as much. also, this increase in inventory may be because these products are just piling up and no one is buying them. also, corporate america isn't spending much on much else. computer and equipment purchases, they're down because they're not sure where the economy is headed. and consumers aren't spending as much as first estimated, either. so there's a little good, there's a little kind of bad in the report, carol. >> yeah. i was going to ask you, what does this all mean as far as the fiscal cliff goes, anything? >> reporter: you know this. the fiscal cliff is going to have a huge impact on the economy. in fact, a big european economic group this week dialed back its estimates for u.